The plates giving representations of the
antiquities found were of the highest interest, but the scientific value
of the letter-press is vitiated by the fact that the true historical
position of the antiquities was not perceived by their discoverers, who
came to the conclusion that these remains were those of a "New Pace" of
Libyan invaders. This race, they supposed, had entered Egypt after the
close of the flourishing period of the "Old Kingdom" at the end of the
VIth Dynasty, and had occupied part of the Nile valley from that time
till the period of the Xth Dynasty.
This conclusion was proved erroneous by M. de Morgan almost as soon
as made, and the French archaeologist's identification of the primitive
remains as pre-dynastic was at once generally accepted. It was obvious
that a hypothesis of the settlement of a stone-using barbaric race in
the midst of Egypt at so late a date as the period immediately preceding
the XIIth Dynasty, a race which mixed in no way with the native
Egyptians themselves, and left no trace of their influence upon the
later Egyptians, was one which demanded greater faith than the simple
explanation of M. de Morgan.
The error of the British explorers was at once admitted by Mr. Quibell,
in his volume on the excavations of 1897 at el-Kab, published in 1898.*
Mr.
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